Ireland's National Building Energy Retrofit Test-Bed

What is NBERT?

NBERT at Zero2020 in CIT is a low energy passively cooled retrofit testbed completed in 2012 with high resolution data logging capabilities. The project involves development of an online data portal incorporating a number of interative apps. The portal provides two separate complimentary functions. Firstly, it will provide all detailed geometric, thermophysical and parametric information regarding the NBERT building in interactive form. All recorded long term measurement data at the building covering energy systems, internal environmental parameters and local building weather data is available in the NBERT data portal. The portal contains embedded data mining and analysis functionality for students interested in building energy systems and low energy retrofit spaces. Additionally, a number online tools, interactive apps, related to different aspects of building performance analysis are available as part of NBERT. Currently, a ventilative cooling potential analysis tool is available for assessing the cooling potential of ventilation systems in the Irish climate that do not utilise mechanical cooling energy. Ventilative cooling is a key strategy in low energy buildings and a performance assessment tool supports the recommendation for the use of natural ventilation in the upcoming Part L for non domestic buildings. The portal provides an open source tool available for use by the building research community.

Activities